A Duke in Turmoil: Dangerous Dukes Vol 9 Page 22

  ‘Your mother took control, and you didn’t bother to challenge her authority.’ She paused, deciding to goad him a little. ‘What sort of a man allows his mother to call the shots?’

  ‘It suited my purpose at the time,’ he said, casually flipping a wrist. ‘I actually rather admire the old girl’s backbone, which is why I’ve allowed her to carry on. But now…well, everything’s changed.’

  ‘Because she doesn’t approve of Maria.’

  ‘Oh yes. Maria is a firebrand, but I will tame her and she will make an exemplary viscountess.’

  ‘I am perfectly sure that she will. She simply needs a firm hand.’

  ‘You are wondering what happened to Andrew and what part I played in his demise.’ She had been but had decided not to ask. All the time she wasn’t aware of the particulars, there was nothing she could do to publicly condemn him. ‘Don’t be coy, my dear. I am aware that you and the duke have been making enquiries. Well, it’s quite simple really,’ he said, stretching his legs out in front of him, narrowly avoiding her own feet, which were frozen solid inside her half-boots. ‘Andrew and I were good friends. He was one of the few people who understood what drove me.’

  ‘He knew you were a clever man?’

  Purvis bowed his head in modest acceptance of what had not been intended as a compliment. ‘I introduced him to Maria. He’d met her already in local Hampshire society, of course, but had never really spoken with her. I wanted to show her off and indulged her desire to…well, to join in with our activities dressed as a boy. We thought it was the most amusing jape and both of us admired her spirit.’ His expression darkened and Sophia was suddenly very afraid of his capabilities. ‘I didn’t realise that Andrew, a friend whom I trusted, would take advantage of Maria. She thought I didn’t know, and is still unaware that I do. She lured me into her bed the moment she realised she was carrying Andrew’s child and that he had no intention of leaving Emily for her, which I subsequently learned is what he had promised her. I pretended not to know that she wasn’t a virgin too, so my reputation for being slow witted once again came into its own.’

  ‘Andrew didn’t behave well.’ She paused. ‘Emily knew about the child and wanted to pretend it was her offspring—if it’s a boy, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I know all about that. I got the particulars out of Andrew before he died.’

  ‘So it’s true.’ Sophia let out a low breath. ‘You killed him.’

  ‘Not personally, but I’m not without funds of my own. Mother’s example taught me the wisdom of always having reserves.’

  ‘The fights,’ she breathed.

  ‘The fights,’ he agreed. ‘The greatest possible sport—and highly lucrative, too.’

  ‘Sport?’ Sophia scowled at him. ‘Two unwilling men attempting to kill one another in a desperate attempt to survive is not my idea of sport.’

  ‘Well, my dear, we men have a different view on that subject.’

  ‘You killed Andrew because he didn’t want anything more to do with the fights.’

  ‘Oh good heavens no.’ His expression turned an icy shade of grey. ‘Andrew had to die because he had the audacity to take what is mine. His murder would have remained unsolved if his brother hadn’t come home, asking awkward questions.’

  ‘Andrew sent for his brother. He told him in a letter about his suspicions.’

  Purvis laughed. ‘Nice try, but it won’t serve. He had no suspicions, since he was unaware he was about to die, nor could he have given up on the fights at the time that letter would have been written.’

  The carriage rattled to a halt in front of a dilapidated row of houses. She had absolutely no idea where they were or how long their journey had been. She left the conveyance when Purvis took her upper arm in a firm hold which allowed no possibility for escape. The snow was still heavy and there was no one around whom she could apply to for help.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

  ‘A property of mine.’ He pushed her through the door and into a cold, almost bare sitting room with two sofas arranged in front of an empty fireplace.

  ‘Get a fire going,’ Purvis said to his coachman, who had followed them inside.

  The man grunted and went off to do as he’d been asked.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Sophia asked, seating herself and attempting not to shiver for fear that the cold seeping into her bones would be interpreted as fear. ‘I am still at a loss to know why I am here.’

  ‘Now, my dear, we send for your friend, the duke.’

  She laughed. ‘He will not come.’

  ‘Oh, I rather think that he will. All of London is talking of his interest in you. Emily is beside herself.’

  ‘And you are going to kill him, I suppose.’

  Purvis shrugged. ‘Arranging to have dukes killed becomes easier with experience, I find.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ross dealt briskly with his legal affairs. He had been distracted throughout the laborious business of government bonds versus private investment opportunities, his lawyer’s voice droning ponderously on. He found it hard to concentrate on percentage point returns, wondering instead how soon he could expect to receive a message from Sophia following her visit to her sister.

  He wished he could have accompanied her. Indeed, he should have insisted upon doing so, feeling a sense of unease about a call that held no obvious danger. She had, as she’d pointed out to him the previous evening, visited Maria weekly without mishap. Besides, she’d added, Maria would never be entirely candid if he was there and she felt the need to make a favourable impression upon him.

  All true, but Ross’s unease endured. He glanced at the long clock for what felt like the hundredth time. It was still relatively early and she probably hadn’t even set out yet, he told himself, wondering how to occupy his time until her note arrived. He glanced distractedly at the pile of correspondence that awaited his attention—invitations, applications for donations to charitable causes, investment opportunities and a dozen other requests. Being a duke, he now had good reason to know, brought with it an onerous number of tedious duties and expectations.

  The doorbell heralded the arrival, not of the anticipated note, but of Ewan McIntyre. Still plagued by his suspicions about Ewan’s reasons for being in London, Ross received his old friend with reservations.

  ‘What brings you to my door at cockcrow?’ he asked, shaking Ewan’s hand. ‘You never used to be one for mornings.’

  ‘We all have to mature at some point,’ Ewan replied, arranging his rangy form in an armchair in front of the fire and looking entirely relaxed as he accepted Ross’s offer of coffee.

  They talked about old times, laughing at memories of their youthful antics, before Ewan turned the conversation to Ross’s time in Carolina.

  ‘You made a success of it, by the sound of things,’ he remarked. ‘I should have come with you. We would have made a formidable pairing and we’d have cleaned up. Mind you, doesn’t seem as though you needed any help, and you found a way of making a fortune that’s a damned sight easier than farming in Scotland.’

  ‘If that is what you think then I have misled you. It’s a brutal way of life and few men make the fortunes they go there in search of. Many lose their lives, either in pursuit of gold or fighting one another over claims. I was lucky.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘How long have you been in town?’ Ross asked when they had exhausted the subject of American mining.

  ‘Arrived just last week. Why do you ask?’

  Ross wanted to mention that he’d been seen in Hampshire but had no idea if that was the truth. He felt comfortable in Ewan’s company, which surely wouldn’t be the case if he’d had a hand in Andrew’s death. There again, Ewan had always been adept at cutting a sham. Perhaps he’d heard that Ross had been asking questions and had called to see if he was a suspect.

  Ewan broke off his amusing account of his disputes with his pig-headed brothers when Tanner entered the room. Ross glanced up at him expectantly, frow
ning when he saw that he didn’t bear a note from Sophia.

  ‘A word, sir,’ Tanner said.

  Ross glanced at Ewan, expecting him to take the hint and leave, but he simply grinned and remained where he was. Ross had been enjoying his company, and had decided that he couldn’t possibly be involved with Andrew’s murder—no one was that good an actor—but his determination to wait it out when it must be obvious that he was intruding upon a fraught situation reignited Ross’s suspicions.

  ‘What is it?’ Ross asked, stepping out into the hall with Tanner.

  Tanner pointed to Phyllis, standing in the hallway, damp and shuffling anxiously from foot to foot.

  ‘Miss Kennard went to see her sister at first light and hasn’t returned,’ Tanner said.

  ‘I’m that worried about her,’ Phyllis said, wringing her hands. ‘She wouldn’t let me go with her but she told me to get a message to you if she weren’t back within two hours. I don’t know if the conditions have prevented her…’ She glanced through the hall window at the steadily falling snow. ‘Or perhaps she can’t get a cab…’

  ‘She went off alone in a cab?’ Ross’s unease increased.

  ‘She did, sir, against my advice.’

  Referring her maid to Ross was about the only sensible thing Sophia had done that morning, he decided. ‘Very well, Phyllis,’ he said. ‘Go home in case she returns. I will look for her.’ And wring her neck for being so irresponsible the moment I get my hands on her.

  ‘Very good, your grace,’ she said, bobbing a curtsey and looking relieved to have passed the responsibility for Sophia’s welfare into his hands. She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her bonnet and left the house.

  Before Ross could galvanise himself, there was a knock at the door and a messenger handed Tanner a note when he answered it. Tanner gave the boy a penny, in response to which he doffed his cap and disappeared into the snow.

  ‘A message from Sophia?’ Ross asked, taking the note from Tanner’s hand and breaking the seal. He felt a combination of anger and fear radiate through him when he read the note’s contents. ‘It’s not from Sophia, it’s from her captor,’ he said, grinding his rigid jaw.

  ‘Captor?’

  Tanner peered over Ross’s shoulder and read the brief missive. It told Ross that if he wanted to see Sophia alive again he was to go to an address in the east end and to go alone.

  ‘That ain’t Greenacre’s address,’ Tanner said, scratching his head. ‘What the devil’s going on? Well obviously, someone has her but the cowardly scoundrel ain’t signed his name. Anyway, whatever it is, you can’t go alone. It’s a trap, clear as day. You’ll finish up in the same way as your brother.’

  ‘What’s to do?’

  Ross turned sharply at the sound of Ewan’s voice. He’d once again moved so stealthily that Ross had been unaware of him leaning against the door jamb. He wondered how long he had been there and how much he had overheard.

  ‘As if you didn’t know,’ Ross said, scowling at his friend.

  Purvis waited for the fire to be lit, then left Sophia in the room alone without addressing another word to her. She heard the key turn in the lock from the outside, the sound loud and grating. She sat back on the uncomfortable settee, her heart palpitating, wondering what she ought to do now. How could she have misjudged Purvis quite so comprehensively? The fact that the entire ton looked upon him as a harmless buffoon was precious little comfort. She now knew that he was in fact a ruthless individual and one who never forgot a slight. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

  Sophia tapped her fingers restlessly on the arm of her chair as her mind whirled with unpalatable possibilities. Ross would come, she knew that he would, and she didn’t have the slightest doubt that Purvis intended to kill them both. Sophia couldn’t permit that to happen. She had to escape and warn him somehow. She got up and examined the windows. The frames were warped and they were stuck firmly closed. Even if she broke the glass, the individual latticed squares were too small for her to get through. She strode up and down the room, across the worn and uneven boards looking for a weapon, but there was nothing in the room that would help her.

  Frustrated, she resumed her chair. Purvis was devious and resolutely determined, but also slightly mad. But Sophia was determined, too. She was not ready to die, not now that she had met a man who stirred her passions and stimulated her senses. A man who could never be hers because her sister’s future husband had killed his own brother and now intended to kill both of them.

  Well, it wasn’t going to happen, she decided. She may not be his heart’s desire but she would save his life.

  Somehow.

  Sophia stood up and conducted a more thorough search for a weapon, deciding that she would need to be creative. There were no ornaments or heavy objects, nothing except the fire that the coachman had so thoughtfully lit for her benefit. And good fires required pokers, she reminded herself. One had been left, probably unintentionally, in the grate and Sophia picked it up. It was heavy and blackened from years of use. She glanced out the window. Purvis’s carriage had gone. She’d heard him give his coachman orders to move it out of sight. It wasn’t the sort of street that would have a mews, so presumably he’d driven to the nearest tavern and would have to trudge back through the snow. How long had he been gone? How soon would he be back?

  She might never get a better opportunity, and wasn’t about to squander it. She pressed her ear to the door and could hear Purvis moving about in another part of the house, muttering to himself. He was definitely a little mad, she decided, aware that there was a thin dividing line between genius and insanity. He was also over-confident and didn’t imagine that Sophia would have the courage or wits to find her own way out of her dilemma.

  ‘I will just have to prove him wrong,’ she said, the sound of her own voice echoing around the spartan room and bolstering her courage.

  Sophia stuck the poker into the embers of the fire and left it there until the tip burned red hot. She then beat her fists against the door and cried out, pretending to be terrified.

  ‘Help! A rat!’ she screamed. ‘There’s a rat in here. Let me out!’

  As she had hoped would be the case, Purvis couldn’t resist the urge to crow over a subdued Sophia, a silly girl who was terrified of rodents. She heard his footsteps approaching on the boarded hall floor, grabbed the poker from the flames and stood behind the door, breathing hard as she clutched the burning fire iron like a talisman. She would have one chance to surprise him and one chance only. If she squandered it, she would be as good as dead. No one, she now knew, crossed Purvis and lived to tell the tale.

  She swallowed hard and waited.

  ‘Scared of a harmless rat, are we?’ Purvis chuckled as the key turned loud and ominously in the lock. ‘Well, that’s why females are designed to be decorative rather than useful, one supposes.’

  The door opened and before Purvis could absorb the fact that the room was empty, Sophia sprang forward and thrust the poker towards his face, determination overcoming any squeamishness she might otherwise have felt. He screamed like a banshee as it struck the right side of his face, perilously close to his eye, leaving a burn that she hoped would remain indelible.

  ‘What the devil? You little bitch!’ Purvis glowered at her through his other eye, the evil in his tone and expression chilling. ‘You’re a dead woman.’

  The smell of burning flesh filled the room, nauseating Sophia. He staggered away from her, covering his face with his hands. He tripped over the couch and rolled on the floor, still yelling like a stuck pig. Sophia felt absolutely no pity when it occurred to her that she had scarred his handsome face permanently. That, she hoped, would prove to be the least of his worries.

  Assuming he was incapacitated, she made the mistake of getting too close to him as he continued to writhe in agony, wondering if she should run or turn the tables on him and lock him in the room until Ross arrived. There again, his coachman could return at any minute.

  Wha
t to do?

  He snarled as he snaked out a hand, caught her ankle and tumbled her to the floor. Her dithering had cost her the chance for freedom. It was her turn to cry out as she landed hard on her shoulder. She’d had the presence of mind to hold onto the poker, but he wrestled her for it, squeezing her hand until her eyes blurred with tears. The pain was unbearable when he resorted to twisting her wrist. Even in his weakened state he was a great deal stronger than she was, especially since he was fighting mad.

  ‘Let it go,’ he said, murder in his eyes as he staggered to his knees and brandished a dagger in front of her. The flesh on one side of his face was seared, the wound open and weeping, and one eye had turned opaque. She wondered if she had blinded him. ‘I had intended to spare you the same fate as your lover, but you have just signed your own death warrant.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Sophia said, reaching for the poker that had fallen from her hand and landed tantalisingly just out of her reach. She looked at him with defiance intended to disguise her fear and the anger she felt, berating herself for letting her guard down. ‘You couldn’t afford to let me live and had convinced yourself that Maria wouldn’t shed too many tears if I were to disappear. But you really haven’t thought this through, have you? The duke has raised questions about his brother’s death, his voice has been listened to by those in authority and if he now disappears too, suspicion will fall on you.’

  ‘What, harmless old Purvis?’ He gave an evil chuckle. ‘Now be a good girl and I will make this easy for you.’

  ‘Not a chance!’

  He had worked his way closer to her and attempted to close his hands around her throat. Sophia knew for certain that she was fighting for her life and there would be no further hesitation on his part since he didn’t understand the meaning of mercy. She skewed her fingernails into the burned side of his face, repulsed by the feel of spongy flesh and blood trickling down her fingers. He howled and immediately released her, allowing her the opportunity to crawl away from him. Unfortunately, she had moved away from the door, which he was blocking with his body and there was nowhere for her to hide in the spartan room.